No one would sniff at all the dollars Jerry Lewis raised for muscular dystrophy: a couple of billion during his 45-year reign as host of the Muscular Dystrophy Association Telethon.
But what kind of TV did he offer in exchange? The short answer: Jerry put on a show like no other.
Labor Day this year promises to be bland by comparison, with the 85-year-old Lewis now banished from the annual rite he built from scratch and molded in his image.
As if deflated by the absence of its larger-than-life host, “The 46th Annual MDA Labor Day Telethon’’ will fill just six hours (Sunday from 6 p.m. to midnight in each of the United States’ four time zones), rather than the grueling 21 ½-hour endurance contest that Lewis used to churn through with his viewers in tow.
On this year’s broadcast (which, ironically, will no longer be airing on Labor Day), a quartet of lightweights are standing in for Jerry: Nigel Lythgoe (“So You Think You Can Dance’’), Nancy O’Dell (“Entertainment Tonight’’), Alison Sweeney (“The Biggest Loser’’) and Jann Carl (billed as “an Emmy-winning journalist’’).
Celebrities will include Celine Dion, Jennifer Lopez, Lady Antebellum, Richie Sambora and Jordan Sparks.
It may be entertaining. It may spur contributions. But as a media event, this year’s telethon can hardly match the display of wretched excess Jerry Lewis guaranteed, especially in his epic, unbridled prime.
“Jerry is a ferociously contradictory personality, and that’s what makes him fascinating to watch,’’ says satirist-actor-writer Harry Shearer, a Jerry-watcher for a half-century. He noted just two of Lewis’ clashing identities: “the inner 9-year-old, set loose’’ and the would-be deep thinker “who fancies himself something of an autodidact.’’
“It all makes for psychodrama of a high order,’’ Shearer marvels.
Year after year, Lewis bounced between the polarities of smarmy sentimentalism and badgering lunacy as if in a weightless environment. He put his multiple identities on raw display, each constantly jostling for the spotlight.
Hear him on a circa-1970s telethon introducing singer Julius LaRosa with syntax-butchering effusiveness as “the kind of human being that is wonderful to get close to and near, and then you pray that it’s contagious’’ and as “what the literal translation of the word `professional’ means,’’ in possession of “probably the best singing voice I think anyone has ever heard, when you listen to the heart that goes into it.’’
It was fascinating, ridiculous, cringe-worthy and spellbinding to see how Jerry held court for the parade of entertainers, the checks-bearing civic leaders and corporate sponsors, and the adorable, afflicted kids.